His Family by Ernest Poole (popular ebook readers txt) 📕

news from the mountains,” she said. And he gave her the gossip of the farm in a letter he had had from George. It told of a picnic supper, the first one of the season. They had had it in the usual place, down by the dam on the river, “with a bonfire⁠—a perfect peach⁠—down by the big yellow rock⁠—the one you call the Elephant.” As Roger read the letter he could feel his daughter listening, vividly picturing to herself the great dark boulders by the creek, the shadowy firs, the stars above and the cool fresh tang of the mountain night.

“After this little sickness of yours⁠—and that harum scarum wedding,” he said, “I feel we’re both entitled to a good long rest in mountain air.”

“We’ll have it, too,” she murmured.

“With Edith’s little youngsters. They’re all the medicine you need.” He paused for a moment, hesitating. But it was now or never. “The only trouble with you,” he said, “is that you’ve let yourself be caught by the same disease which has its grip upon this whole infernal town. You’re like everyone else, you’re tackling about forty times what you can do. You’re actually trying not only to teach but to bring ’em all up as your own, three thousand tenement children. And this is where it gets you.”

Again he halted, frowning. What next?

“Go on, dear, please,” said Deborah, in demure and even tones. “This is very interesting.”

“Now then,” he continued, “in this matter of your school. I wouldn’t ask you to give it up, I’ve already seen too much of it. But so long as you’ve got it nicely started, why not give somebody else a chance? One of those assistants of yours, for example⁠—capable young women, both. You could stand right behind ’em with help and advice⁠—”

“Not yet,” was Deborah’s soft reply. She had turned her head on her pillow and was looking at him affectionately. “Why not?” he demanded.

“Because it’s not nicely started at all. There’s nothing brilliant about me, dear⁠—I’m a plodder, feeling my way along. And what I have done in the last ten years is just coming to a stage at last where I can really see a chance to make it count for something. When I feel I’ve done that, say in five years more⁠—”

“Those five years,” said her father, “may cost you a very heavy price.” As Deborah faced his troubled regard, her own grew quickly serious.

“I’d be willing to pay the price,” she replied.

“But why?” he asked with impatience. “Why pay when you don’t have to? Why not by taking one year off get strength for twenty years’ work later on? You’d be a different woman!”

“Yes, I think I should be. I’d never be the same again. You don’t quite understand, you see. This work of mine with children⁠—well, it’s like Edith’s having a baby. You have to do it while you’re young.”

“That works both ways,” her father growled.

“What do you mean?” He hesitated:

“Don’t you want any children of your own?”

Again she turned her eyes toward his, then closed them and lay perfectly still. “Now I’ve done it,” he thought anxiously. She reached over and took his hand.

“Let’s talk of our summer’s vacation,” she said.

A little while later she fell asleep.

Downstairs he soon grew restless and after a time he went out for a walk. But he felt tired and oppressed, and as he had often done of late he entered a little “movie” nearby, where gradually the pictures, continually flashing out of the dark, drove the worries from his mind. For a half an hour they held his gaze. Then he fell into a doze. He was roused by a roar of laughter, and straightening up in his seat with a jerk he looked angrily around. Something broadly comic had been flashed upon the screen; and men and women and children, Italians, Jews and Irish, jammed in close about him, a dirty and perspiring mass, had burst into a terrific guffaw. Now they were suddenly tense again and watching the screen in absorbed suspense, while the crude passions within themselves were played upon in the glamorous dark. And Roger scanned their faces⁠—one moment smiling, all together, as though some god had pulled a string; then mawkish, sentimental, soft; then suddenly scowling, twitching, with long rows of animal eyes. But eager⁠—eager all the time! Hungry people⁠—yes, indeed! Hungry for all the good things in the town, and for as many bad things, too! On one who tried to feed this mob there was no end to their demands! What was one woman’s life to them? Deborah’s big family!

Edith came to the house one afternoon, and she was in Deborah’s room when her father returned from his office. Her convalescence over at last, she was leaving for the mountains.

“Do learn your lesson, Deborah dear,” she urged upon her sister. “Let Sarah pack your trunk at once and come up with me on Saturday night.”

“I can’t get off for two weeks yet.”

“Why can’t you?” Edith demanded. And when Deborah spoke of fresh air camps and baby farms and other work, Edith’s impatience only grew. “You’ll have to leave it to somebody else! You’re simply in no condition!” she cried.

“Impossible,” said Deborah. Edith gave a quick sigh of exasperation.

“Isn’t it enough,” she asked, “to have worked your nerves to a frazzle already? Why can’t you be sensible? You’ve got to think of yourself a little!”

“You’d like me to marry, wouldn’t you, dear?” her sister put in wearily.

“Yes, I should, while there is still time! Just now you look far from it! It’s exactly as Allan was saying! If you keep on as you’re going you’ll be an old woman at thirty-five!”

“Thank you!” said Deborah sharply. Two spots of color leaped in her checks. “You’d better leave me, Edith! I’ll come up to the mountains as soon as I can! And I’ll try not to look any more like a hag than I have to! Good night!”

Roger followed Edith out of the room.

“That last shot